...And not in a good way. This is likely old news to some, but I didn't keep up when this SNAFU was happening last fall. Comments have largely only tried to discredit the source as coming from David Jennison, former lead character artist of Star Citizen who left, but another online press source has apparently contacted Jennison and reports that he does not desire his name removed from association with the leaked email, so take it as you will.

We've been talking to Jennison, and he's not asked to have his name removed.

Have a look below and think about how many iterations of the stupid fekking SC hangar have we seen. It's bugged the hell out of me that it keeps changing, and why? Enough already. I know many of you don't like to see negative threads here, and I generally agree with this, but this reached some threshold for me and the leaked email hit such a cord with my own suspicions of mismanagement and the Chris Roberts hype generation machine (at what cost?) that I needed to rant a bit.

EDIT: Damn if you beat me to it Vander, I was thinking the same thing...

Just a clip then that speaks volumes:

... It became clear within a matter of weeks of working at CIG, that all the decisions for the character pipeline and approach had been made by Roberts. It became clear that this was a company-wide pattern - CR dictates all. Instead of articulating the standard for approval and allowing the team to develop the best methods to meet this bar, Roberts dictates what the method is, usually with a fraction of the knowledge that the employee has over their particular field. Then, when the plan or method fails to produce the results CR wants, the employee inevitable takes the blame, after all they are responsible for their corner of the game.... When you have someone at the top who wants to make every decision but is accountable for no decisions he makes and is keen on publicly blaming those beneath him for those bad decisions, it creates an environment of people desperate to avoid that blame. Since no one can hold CR accountable, and they certainly don’t want to be made out at fault, they point fingers at anyone else. This breeds distrust and resentment among coworkers. I have been a victim of undue blame at times and am sure that I have thrown others under the bus as well. ...

IF this email is true (and who knows where truth lies), it will be a surprise if this kind of corporate culture will ever generate a true playable version of the persistent universe.

Why do I feel like I dodged a bullet by not buying into this one? "Oleg Syndrome" sounds very serious to me. Hope it works out in the end for you guys that did buy in. Don't worry, I bet it will be all fixed up in "2 weeks"...(I'll show myself to the door. )

Well, in our defense, we backed the project in the first week to a month of the original kickstarter in October 2012. It was indeed a very exciting event to partake in, i.e. backing game development without a 'middle man' and it rang all the right bells. He had a great vision, successful game titles under his belt (if a bad universally panned movie), though its obvious that old games do not come close to the tech used today.

Only afterwards did this SC hype machine really get rolling, and in the beginning it sort of made sense as a developer does not want to loose that sort of public attention for the project. It got out of hand and became an end unto itself, generating money. As another blogger mentioned, and I paraphrase, "Star Citizen has really nice wallpaper, but has no walls".

I do not know if what we are seeing from them currently in fact represents game elements/modules that can eventually be stitched together into something cohesive, though I will remain cautiously optimistic. In the end I think those who backed in the very beginning made the right decision at that time. Johnny-come-lately only has himself to blame.

And Mugue, who backed that WWII flight sim kickstarter using DCS engine?

"And Mugue, who backed that WWII flight sim kickstarter using DCS engine?" <--Not me. Fortunately! Though I admit I was tempted at one time. But in the end, Clod had left such a bad taste in my mouth I couldn't support/trust Luther et al.(even after he got Oleg to sit at the fireside ) Just like SC, the claims were too good to be true.

Watching the train wreck of DCS WW2 and SC "develop", I've come to the conclusion that I'm not investing in any game anymore till it's in a workable Alpha/Beta stage at least. I see your excitement at possibly helping and guiding a startup game, and I don't fault you for dreaming. I just can't do it myself. I'd rather pay more later for a working product than get burned dreaming of what could be. I hate shysters, and to me, Chris Roberts seems like the biggest one around. But for your sake I hope I'm wrong.

Only an ex employe with personal hostilities against chris roberts. You don't know why and what's happen between these two guys. But for me SC is on course.

The flight model is finished and needs some fine-tuning. The damage model also. FPS is near to finish. SP is in work. Planetary landing is in work. We have some network problems. We have some bugs where you fall out of the ship in multi crew. No big things.

Ok the game took longer than planned but it was no surprise. It's an very ambitious project!

But comparing chris roberts with oleg is bullshit. Chris roberts always talks to the community. And you see progress all the time. That's completely different.

And regarding WWII DCS:

It isn't failed. It is comming. We have more than half of the planes in DCS quality. The map is in progress. It only takes more time. Thank's to DCS for jumping in...shame to oleg!!

Hello Der Hesse, I know you would come here with a positive perspective and that's good to help balance.

I do not dispute at all that the leaked email (purported to be from Jennison, and purportedly not denied by him) comes from a disgruntled former employee. I am not sure whether you read the whole email in the link above, or just the section I quoted.

Best to read the whole thing, it less about disguntlement, in fact it has quite an objective professional tone and speaks to game development mechanics, work flow efficiency, etc. If somebody faked that email, then they are a master of Machiavellian intrigue.

Do not get me wrong, I most sincerely want SC to more-or-less become the vision CR wants, and we all knew it would take a long time to achieve that. I disagree emphatically with the complete hype machine he has created with kickstarter money - its only purpose to generate more money feeding more hype machine. As mentioned, what hit a cord with me in that email was the rework, rework, rework of game elements, the bloody hangar being only the most obvious.

There seems to be no regard to proper and efficient game development management here, and that isn't new or news in the industry. I remain cautiously optimistic, but the money is likely running out at this point.

Well let's give him (CR) the benefit of the doubt and hope we'll get our game someday. Still, I predicted this when I compared Elite Dangerous with Star Citizen two years back. I still think ED took the better approach by releasing a core game, then adding updates & expansions later. It's a more efficient way of working and allows you to keep focus. Look at how that Freelancer model was overhauled..it looks great, but I have the feeling a lot of earlier work has gone down the drain which is a waste of (our) money & time.Not saying that ED is better than SC; in fact SC promises to be superior....but it's still not a game! ...fingers crossed...